Grapes Of Wrath Field Note Analysis

The First Field Note My very first writing of the semester was a field note I wrote to better prepare myself to write my critical essay about The Grapes of Wrath. In this field note, I attempted to do close reading. Close reading requires the writer to take a small piece of text and analyze all aspects of that text. This means that the student reads deliberately and actively. We were asked to read the sentences out loud, listen to words, listen to the word choice, and listen to the patterns of the words. We were asked to look at the small piece as a whole rather than as piece of a greater body. I analyzed passage that discussed the gatherings of Oklahoma migrants after a long day of driving. After rereading my passage, I noticed that I wrote

I wrote this mini essay just before my class took a field to the creek. We were going to observe the Boneyard Creek all throughout the campus. We followed the creek as it traveled across Champaign and found where it dipped below the city and found where it resurfaced. This was just one of the interesting field trips that were we able to take as a class and I enjoyed seeing the beautification of the creek. Before we headed out to see the creek, I was able to tell the class about my research. I really enjoyed this writing because I got to report my findings to the class. My writing served a purpose! How exciting! I think this was writing where I found my voice/style that stuck with me through the rest of my writing assignments. The field note is broken up into several categories about the Boneyard Creek and ends on a witty personal remark. I really enjoyed being able to present information in my own way. I think my personal remarks really made the information seem interesting and relevant. I think this writing was my model for my personal narrative which was very

In this assignment, we were asked to write about personal experiences with food, water, or energy. This was large project that went over the course of three weeks. When I heard the prompt for this assignment, I was intimidated. In my mind, this assignment was just going to be another tedious research paper just like I wrote every year in high school. I began by thinking about sources of energy around me. I knew that there was large refinery in the backyard of my high school and I knew it was dangerous. I figured it would be easy to find information about the refinery considering I lived right next to it. Wrong! It turns out finding the dirty secrets of a refinery is hard! Finding information quickly became a challenge for me. Thank goodness my grandmother worked at the refinery for a long period of time. She was able to me tell some of her experiences there and help me find some one-of-a-kind resources. I also got to interview my sister who is also works at a refinery doing similar things. I enjoyed the research process because I felt like I was revealing some truth that needed to be told to the public. This was of course frustrating of course because I could never fully get all my questions answered. When it came time to complete my final draft, I felt like there was so much missing to my story (despite the fact that my paper was pushing nine pages). My final paper was very informative, a little witty, and ended